Xbox One is better than PS4 – at consuming lots of energy

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

For the most part, the Xbox One is not as good of a games console as the PS4. The biggest complaints are that it costs more (for now) due to the inclusion of Kinect, and it’s not as powerful. But this week it has been confirmed that the Xbox One is better than the PS4 at something. The problem is, that something is consuming energy.

The Natural Resources Defense Council reviewed the energy consumption of the next-gen games consoles, and has found that while both the Xbox One and PS4 are pretty bad, the Xbox One is the biggest energy user by far. To add salt to the wound, the Kinect sensor is a key reason for that.

The NRDC claims that these new consoles will account for $1 billion in annual utility bills across America, but $400 million of that is generated when the consoles are in standby mode and not being used. That’s where the Xbox One’s problem lies, as the always-active voice command feature needs more energy to function.

If you own a Wii U then well done! It will consume around 37kWh/year compared to 40kWh/year for the Wii. By comparison the last model of the PS3 consumed 64kWh/year where as the PS4 is rated at 181kWh/year–nearly three-times as high. The Xbox One is worst, though. The last model Xbox 360 consumed 70kWh/year, but the Xbox One ranges anywhere from 210-289kWh/year depending on how the TV mode usage is setup.

You have to consider that these are first-gen models of the new consoles and hardware revisions will see the energy usage drop in time. The original fat PS3 used over 400W when powered on, where as the super slim model was closer to 100W. The Xbox One will also see that power use come down when the Kinect-less model ships next month. It’s going to be the more popular model, and therefore the overall energy consumption for the machine will drop.

It isn’t all bad news for the Xbox One, though. It uses less power when turned on, when playing games, and when streaming content compared to the PS4. So removing Kinect may even see the PS4 jump to the top of the power consumption charts. For now, here’s how the power use currently stacks up across the three next-gen machines: